How quickly yâall forget
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YeahâŠummmâŠwith the CFP expanding I donât see how that makes ND want to join a conferenceâŠif anything it gives them a better chance to make the CFP as an independent and keep their TV moneyâŠ
I thought I saw with the proposed set up the top spots are all guaranteed to conference champions. I think ND has less of a mathematical chance to make the playoffs with the proposed setup. But donât think that ia enough for them to give up on the tv money
Notre Dame actually makes less money with NBC than each ACC school does with ESPN. If it was about money theyâd just join the Big Ten. Staying independent is about being able to play all of their rivalry games theyâd lose if they had to play an 8 game conference schedule.
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They definitely use the independent thing to their advantage for recruiting. Play on national tv, agaisnt guranteed big time opponents each week. It all adds into the mystique they like to sell
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Another myth debunked⊠thanks⊠although they get a CFP payout as an indyâŠ.even when they donât get inâŠ
Well, now it is looking more and more real that Texas and Oklahoma might be on their way to the SEC. If that happens, it could kick off some major realignment. Big12 might be torn apart by other conferences. Going to be strange times.
It unfortunately does feel like the ACC is not positioned particularly well. The weird Notre Dame situation does make us money and Iâm for it, but if others are moving to 16 teams, do we feel the need to? Would we add two more and have 17 in all sports but football? Or just one?
And if we do add, who? Our payouts are lower than BIG and SEC by a significant margin, so it would seemingly be difficult to lure any of their members away. Cincinnati seems like the logical choice, and maybe West Virginia. Beyond that, not a lot of options.
My hot take is that - sadly - I think maybe the ACC should think about parting ways with a few members to bring in some better replacements, if that is even possible to do via the current bylaws. Specifically, it just doesnât seem to me like Boston College and Wake Forest are ever going to be willing to make the investments needed to be competitive programs in the modern athletics era (which is, by the way, a totally fair position for them to take). They are also small schools with small fanbases. I guess BC gives us a media market, but Cincinnati would give us Ohio.
Also, to take a first guess at what the super conferences could look like if Big 12 is torn apart by vultures, maybe something like the below. Although I could see the BIG maybe luring Missouri away from the SEC instead of bringing in a school like Iowa St. Or they might come into the ACC hunting for new schools. Wouldnât be crazy for the BIG to reach out to like UVA and UNC. Although donât know how far those convos would go.
ACC: Virginia, Virginia Tech, Florida St, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, UNC, Duke, NC State, Wake Forest, Louisville, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Notre Dame, West Virginia, Cincinnati
SEC: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi St, LSU, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma
BIG: Maryland, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio St, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan St, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, Northwestern, Penn St, Rutgers, Kansas, Iowa St
PAC: Washington, Washington St, Oregon, Oregon St, Cal, USC, Stanford, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona St, Utah, Colorado, Texas Tech, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, TBD (Nevada? New Mexico?)
Outcasts: TCU, Baylor
West Virginia does nothing from an media market perspective and is a disaster academically. I have a hard time seeing us take them
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ACC may get screwed hard and have to take a wvu. Heard some rumblings that if the SEC expands Clemson may explore going with. That would effectively leave the ACC out of the football game.
We need to be prepared to jump ship ASAP⊠which I do not expect our AD to do
That would be SEC going beyond 16 teams though unless they ditched somebody (or they didnât take both TX and OK). At that point theyâd be closer to being like a league than a conference. Might as well also snag FSU, UNC, and VT to expand their footprint.
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It would be UVA instead of Tech. If this goes crazy they might not have that chance though. UVA and UNC would probably head to the Big Ten before the SEC.
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West Virginia is definitely not an ideal fit, but this is all being driven by football money and at some point weâd need to add other solid football programs. Unless we can lure like a South Carolina out of the SEC (which seems very unlikely given how money theyâre all making), we may just have to pick up BIG 12 refugees and/or the best of the non-P5 in the east, like Cincinnati. I guess UCF is also out there, but that feels like it makes even less sense.
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Yeah, I think if everything exploded, UVA and UNC are better fits in BIG than SEC. VT and NCST could go to SEC to get them those media markets.
Anyway, I hope it doesnât get that crazy. But also feel like the ACC needs to figure something out to not be pushed even further down the totem pole.
Assuming another round of realignment does occur the best thing for the future of our sports would be to joint the Big Ten and get in on the media deal. However realistically loyalty and tradition will probably win out and weâll stay with the ACC even if it becomes a sinking ship. Best thing the ACC could do in that landscape would be to convince Notre Dame to join for football.
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Pure rumor and innuendo so donât take what I said or say to heart. I get the sneaking feeling if they were to get Clemson in on the deal the actual goal would be to make the Super League for football and at least for that sport move away from the traditional conference set up. Now what is the ripple effect of that? I have no idea.
The ACC is barely a football conference as is, and honestly while football moves the needle. They may be better off going the Big East route and embracing itâs basketball roots. Because the ship has sailed for football and honestly thereâs not a good target left to acquire. South Carolina would never leave the SEC because they make far too much money being an avg at best football program. Same to Vandy.
I say go all in on basketball try to maintain/save as much football as you can, hoping that a VT, UNC, UVA have their occasional up years and go from there. The arms race for football is too far gone to try to catch up now.
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This.
I never liked making expansion decisions based totally on FB. The ACC is and always has been a basketball league. Iâve lived in SEC country a good chunk of my adult life, and game day football environments at Mississippi State, Ole Miss or Florida crush anything the ACC has outside of Clemson. Forget about LSU, Alabama, Georgia or Auburn.
Iâd be fine if we picked up Kentucky for hoops, Vanderbilt for baseball, and let Clemson go. No oneâs going to compete with them in the near future anyway.
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Kentucky and Vanderbilt ainât happening. No one gives up their tradition to also take a huge pay cut.
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My slight concern is whether itâs viable to be a basketball-focused conference and still remain competitive in basketball. For a long time the SEC was pretty mediocre at basketball and we all just said theyâre a football conference, but now theyâre making so much money on football and their TV deals that theyâre reinvesting it into basketball and weâre seeing the results as they get steadily better. If we arenât making that kind of money and donât have those brands, will we be able to really stay an elite basketball conference?
All that said, as you noted, we may just not have much of a choice at the end of the day. The SEC schools will always be willing to pour more resources into sports than we will ever be comfortable with (and Iâd argue for good reason on our end). Their brands and fanbases are just massive, and now NIL will come into play as well. We canât compete in an arms race, we can just hope to stay in the near top tier.
I do think itâll be interesting to see which way we/the ACC go. Do we try and up our football by bringing in WVU and Cincinnati and at least pretend to compete with the BIG and SEC? Do we become basketball-centric and lose some football schools? Do schools like UVA and UNC seriously consider abandoning ship and joining the BIG? Who knows.
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